


lock your doors to keep me out

by a_good_soldier



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Complete, Episode: s10e21 Mr. Scratch, Gen, Introspection, Kidnapping, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-03-28 23:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3873910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_good_soldier/pseuds/a_good_soldier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Lewis has made Aaron a liability. Aaron figures out how to deal with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so this is technically a work in progress, but do not fear! i have the whole thing planned out, it's just a matter of writing the actual words. (but i still have no idea what i'm doing.) also thanks to matthew gray gubler for directing a kickass episode and making me feel hotch feelings i wasn't sure i entirely wanted to feel. this work is 100% just me processing those feelings.

Aaron considers removing himself from field duty.

 

As in, he takes the two weeks of leave they offer him without blinking, and doesn’t let himself feel shame at the pity in his team’s eyes, but what he means is: he considers removing himself from field duty, permanently.

 

It would be safer, that’s for sure. He remembers the split-second decision he made to shoot Lewis _(how do I get into your head)_ and how close he came to shooting his team instead. He remembers begging Rossi to take the gun away from him, because he couldn’t make himself let go of it. Lewis’ voice keeps rattling around in his mind, and he can’t help feeling like he’s won _(now I know what scares you)_. Lewis is already in his head, and that makes it dangerous for Aaron to have access to a truly obscene amount of power.

 

It’s not the money that makes him hesitate to step down. He knows he’d find a desk job easily enough, and his son’ll be proud of him no matter what he does. But he figures he still has a good few years of fight left in him. He can do good work. He knows that.

 

Lewis says it’s just his ego talking.

 

Lewis shouldn’t be saying anything to him at all, because he’s in jail.

 

–

 

“Hey, kiddo,” he says on his first night of leave. He is shaking. Jack doesn’t notice.

 

“Hey, dad!” Jack runs around him to grab his sandwich. Aaron was supposed to give him the sandwich. Aaron was supposed to cut it for him. (Aaron couldn’t hold the kitchen knife.)

 

They sit down to eat at the dinner table, where Haley’s father blamed him for her death. Jack’s still young, but maybe when he’s older, and he truly understands what happened, he’ll-

 

Well. Aaron knows he has many things to feel guilty about. It’s hardly the end of the world if his kid thinks so, too.

 

–

 

By the start of his second week at home, Jack is tired of his dad being around all the time, and to be honest, Aaron is, too. He’s tired of being on edge all the time, having to watch himself in his own home. He locks his doors at night, puts the keys in places that are too far for him to reach easily, and keeps all the weapons out of close range. He asks Jack to lock the door to his room, and when he asks why, Aaron only says it’s for safety. Jack doesn’t need to be afraid of his father yet.

 

–

 

On his first day back, his team doesn’t act like nothing happened, which is good, but they also aren’t cautious around him, which is... stressful. Anxiety-inducing. Panic attack in the stall of the seventh floor men’s bathroom-inducing, actually, and they’re all profilers, but no one calls him out on his pale face or his shaky hands. Reid and Rossi stay close, as though they can ward off his fears with their presence alone, but it just makes him want to tell them to run. They’re not safe around him. Morgan claps him on the back and he holds back his flinch, he does, but Morgan still frowns and no one else touches him for the rest of the day.

 

He gets out of the building, thankfully without anyone trying to talk to him about the shattered mess of a human being he’s become, picks Jack up from school, and lets him run around before dinner while he stares at his hands. It’s been years since his thoughts of Haley were entirely grief-saturated pangs of regret, but tonight all he can think is that she would’ve brought him out of his head. Instead he’s all filled up with Peter Lewis and his voice narrating his every thought, his every movement, and now his dead fucking ex-wife is all tangled up in this trauma.

 

_You killed her_ , Lewis says. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before.

 

–

 

On his second day back, he works on paperwork in the conference room while Reid and Morgan toss a rubber band ball back and forth. Aaron’s pen skids across the page when Morgan laughs. All he can hear is the gurgling in his throat as he bled out onto the carpet, after Lewis shot him (and Aaron would’ve done the same, god, if they’d been a second too soon or too late he’d have done just the same).

 

Morgan catches the ball and doesn’t throw it back. “Hey, you okay?” Morgan’s always been more perceptive than Reid when it comes to emotional cues. He probably heard the unnatural jerk of his ballpoint over the page. That kind of awareness must have been what helped him stay alive when Reid had- it had just been a shot, one shot, and Reid was- JJ’s scream-

 

“-Hotch, _Hotch_ , man, can you hear me?”

 

“I’m sorry, I was distracted.” Both Morgan and Reid look worried, and Garcia’s standing in the doorway. He looks down at his page. The black scratches he doesn’t remember drawing on his page remind him of the hollow space in Lewis’ eyes; the childlike drawings of Mr. Scratch; the blood that soaked into the carpet after Regan stabbed herself. “I think I need to concentrate to get this done, work in a quieter space.” He smiles to take the sting out of his words, and gathers his things up. “I’ll be in my office if you need me,” he says, and walks out of the office before anyone can stop him.

 

The black scratches on his page worry him. He dissociated for one or two seconds, three max, but he knows how much of a difference that time can make. He knows exactly how much damage he can do in three seconds.

 

–

 

Aaron understands the importance of counsellors. He understands the importance of psychological evaluations and of being honest with your psychiatrist. He understands that he is not the only one at risk if he chooses not to disclose the lingering effects of what Lewis did to him - in fact, he’s probably the last person anyone would consider to be at risk.

 

And yet. The thought of walking into a trauma counsellor’s office, of laying out every violation that was done to his mind and the thoughts (the _voice_ ) he hears in his head every day for a stranger to pick apart and use to deduce and extrapolate from, is unacceptable. He can feel the back of his neck prickling with a dangerous and shameful heat when he meets the eyes of his team members. Perhaps it would have been less difficult if he’d seen someone when it first happened - after all, practically everyone on the team has one form of trauma or another, and no one’s reacted with disgust at the thought of their teammates going through therapy. But now? Two weeks after? He can see Rossi shaking his head. Tell me while it’s still fresh, he’d said, and now Aaron’s put his team at risk by not having seen someone before he returned to active duty.

 

The longer he waits, the worse it’ll be when they eventually find out he’s not okay; he _knows_ this. But he can’t bring himself to let them know. He knows how the grief after Haley’s death had left him raw, and how it had faded after long enough. He hopes the same thing will happen this time.

 

_You know it won’t, because I’ll still be here_ , Lewis says. Aaron doesn’t disagree.

 

–

 

And Aaron keeps going like this, with his dangerous secret fading into something that could be considered manageable, until it happens.

 

The case was routine, or at least as routine as serial killers can get: an easily identifiable victim pool (white, blonde women, early twenties, murdered in a way that suggests a sexual undertone; likely motivated by rejection, or perceived rejection, from someone in the unsub’s life), a detailed profile (white man, likely early twenties as well; likely in university, since all the women were either recent graduates or in their final years of undergraduate studies; likely a loner, someone who doesn’t make emotional connections quickly or easily), and a small geographical comfort zone.

 

Which was why Hotch felt comfortable enough to join the team. It was a good case for him to get his feet wet on - very little opportunity for him to be put in harm’s way, considering that he was not a blonde woman in her early twenties, and an unsub who seemed predictable enough for him to feel okay with staying behind at their home base in the police precinct while they went out to arrest the man they figured was responsible.

 

When he’s knocked out while hanging out behind the precinct and shoved unceremoniously into the back of a van, his last thought is of Jack.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“I’ve been thinking a lot about you and your team, Aaron,” his kidnapper says. Aaron tries to reach for his blindfold, and finds his arms tied together. There are cameras in the police parking lot, and the fact that he’s tied up and blindfolded means his kidnapper wants to keep him alive for as long as he can. That means he just has to hang on until his team comes for him.

 

“You know, after that fiasco with Peter Lewis, I kept a closer eye on you,” and Aaron stiffens, because none of that information was public knowledge. “I went through the report for that case in particular, Aaron. It was interesting reading, which was how I stumbled across it in the first place. I remember what you wrote. _My actions were not my own. Having experienced Lewis’ suggestive techniques first hand, I am confident in saying that he is a very skilled manipulator; his victims were not in control of themselves at the time of the murders._ I liked that a lot. You should become a novelist, Aaron.”

 

“What do you want from me?” Aaron starts to fiddle with the knots around his wrist, but his kidnapper stops him.

 

“Ah, ah, ah, Aaron. Don’t touch those ropes. They’re there for a good reason.” A mirror behind him, then, or some other way for this person to see what he’s doing. He lets his hands fall still. “Good,” his kidnapper says. “You know, I remember you wrote that you almost shot your team under Peter’s influence. That must have been very difficult, Aaron. Very tough. What a situation to find yourself in.”

 

Aaron stays silent. He wonders how long it’ll take for his team to get here.

 

“You don’t have to answer. I just wanted to pause for dramatic effect. But I want you to hear something, Aaron. I want you to listen closely.” His kidnapper gets up, and Aaron hears his footsteps walking to the other side of the room, or whatever place he’s being held in.

 

He hears a splash, and someone gasping for air.

 

Shit. That means there’s someone else here - someone else Aaron is responsible for - and he tries to untie the knots around his wrists again. Maybe his kidnapper’s back is turned-

 

“Stop!” The man returns and backhands him across the face. Aaron notes that he’s strong. He has a big hand. No rings. Aaron’s nose is bleeding. “I told you not to play with those ropes.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Aaron says through the copper tang of blood in his mouth. “I won’t do it again.”

 

“Not if you want your partner to live,” the kidnapper says, and, shit.

 

“Where am I?” gasps Reid.

 

–

 

The man removes Aaron’s blindfold after kicking him to the ground, facedown, so he still can’t see his kidnapper’s face as he leaves the room. Aaron looks over at Reid, who’s shivering and tied up, still soaked, but otherwise apparently unharmed.

 

“You okay?”

 

“Yeah. You?”

 

“I’m fine.” Aaron tries to crawl forward to Reid - he doesn’t try to untie himself, not when Reid’s life is at risk. “How’d he get you?”

 

“I got back to the precinct first. The rest of the team made the arrest, so I went back to tell you, and you weren’t there. The police officers said you’d gone outside, so I went out to check, and then he got me. I didn’t get a good look at his face.”

 

“Right.” Aaron inches closer to Reid. It really won’t help anything, but he’ll feel better if he can just be close enough to protect him.

 

Objectively, he knows that Reid just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He also knows that Reid is the youngest member of the team, the one who appears to be the most vulnerable, and unsubs who get personal with the BAU are aware of this and target him deliberately. He still can’t help but remember JJ’s _(imagined)_ scream as she stood over Reid’s dead body. He can’t help but remember that Reid was the first inside that door - would’ve been the first one Aaron killed.

 

“Do they know we've been kidnapped?” Aaron asks.

 

“By now, almost certainly. My interal clock is a little messed up, but at the very minimum around thirty minutes have passed since I got back to the precinct, which means that the rest of the team would have arrived there at least eighteen minutes ago.” Reid coughs, curling in on himself as much as he can with his arms behind his back; it’s good that he’s not hacking up blood. Aaron thinks about all the times Reid has been in danger - when Henkel kidnapped him, when he was infected with anthrax, when Aaron _almost shot him_ \- and the fact that he’s just a kid. He’s just a kid, caught up in a kidnapper’s obsession with the BAU - and with Aaron himself. _You brought him into this_ , Lewis says. _And let’s face it. You’re going to be the one that takes him out. For good_.

 

From where he’s sitting, Aaron thinks he’s got a point.

 

–

 

Reid is very good at sleight of hand. Aaron had forgotten, but when their (apparently masked, which could either be a new addition or something he never noticed before) kidnapper walks in to kick them around, he walks out short one paperclip. Aaron’s not even sure where the paperclip came from, but he doesn’t question it.

 

(It is very likely that his acceptance is more shock than anything else. It is very likely that he has a concussion, and very battered ribs. It is very likely that Reid will need crutches, or at least a cane, for the next week or so.

 

It is very likely that Aaron wants to do more violence to their kidnapper than is strictly permitted under the laws to which he has committed himself; this is a terrifying thought.)

 

The paperclip can’t do much good when it comes to cutting a rope, but Aaron realizes that Reid is able to use it to loosen the knot around his wrists. He keeps an eye on the door, but he can’t hear or see anything that would suggest their kidnapper returning. It means that they’re probably not being observed during the times when they’re alone, so Hotch tries to wriggle out of the rope keeping him captive. He doesn’t end up succeeding, but Reid frees himself and is able to free Hotch, too.

 

When they finally stumble to the door, both a little more bruised than they want the other to notice, it’s locked. Before Reid can apply his paperclip skills to the lock, the door opens to reveal their kidnapper, waiting.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy cow, sorry for the long wait folks!!! hopefully this is easier to read than it was to write lol :^) (i might come back & edit this l8r, but i just wanted to post it and get it out of the way)

“Can someone explain to me how this happened?” JJ asks, more diplomatically than anyone else on the team feels capable of acting. Her hands are clenched behind her back, though, and anyone looking would be able to see the tension in her spine.

 

“They must’ve been taken from the back parking lot - that’s where they were when we last saw them. We’ll give you our security footage, visitor’s logs, anything else you need.” The cop nods at one of his coworkers, who’s on the phone with Garcia.

 

Morgan keeps adjusting his grip on the chair in front of him. He can’t make himself sit down. “Hey Garcia, you get anything from the camera footage?”

 

“This guy was super sloppy- which, of course, is super good for us. I got a full, clear shot of his face, and I’m running it through our facial recognition software right now,” Garcia’s disembodied voice says.

 

“When you find out who this guy is, check to see if he has access to any land or buildings where he could keep two grown men,” Kate suggests. No one wants to clarify that she means two grown men who are alive; no one wants to think that anything else might be true.

 

“Will do. I’ll call you back when I get something- wait a sec, facial rec just came through. Okay. His name’s Arthur Groenig, he’s twenty-five, and I’ll get back to you on the properties thing.”

 

“Thanks, baby girl,” Morgan says, and ends the call. “So Groenig decides to kidnap two federal agents from a police precinct parking lot. The guy obviously didn’t do a lot of thinking ahead. He didn’t bother to hide his face from the cameras, which either means he’s sloppy and didn’t know about them or he doesn’t have the means to hack into the security system. Or both.”

 

“Or he knew about the cameras, and doesn’t care that we know who he is,” Kate adds. “Maybe he’s confident and wants to show off.”

 

“No, I don’t think so,” Rossi says. “He doesn’t look directly at the camera, or make any other obvious sign that he knows where it is, which is what he would do if he wanted to send us a message.”

 

JJ frowns at the table with the very little information they do have - Reid, Hotch, back of a van, unknown subject. She grabs a marker and writes ARTHUR GROENIG on the piece of paper labelled UNSUB. “So he’s sloppy, didn’t think ahead, but still managed to get the drop on two trained FBI agents. Clearly he knows who they are and targeted them specifically - if you want an easy target, you don’t go looking for agents hanging out in the parking lot behind a police precinct. But if he’s so disorganized, why - and how - would he follow through on such a difficult task?”

 

“You’re right,” Rossi says. “It doesn’t add up.” 

 

“Guys.” Kate taps blank space below Groenig's name. “What if there’s a partner?”

 

–

 

They don’t give their kidnapper time to react. Aaron goes for a punch in the face while Reid blocks the fist that’s about to move in retaliation. The man obviously isn’t an experienced fighter, and while neither Aaron nor Reid can claim any kind of expertise in hand-to-hand combat, they both have FBI training under their belts. Aaron spots the knife that the man has slipped from his pocket, and manages to grab it from him. It’s easier than he was expecting; it practically feels as though the knife has been handed to him. FBI training is very effective.

 

Reid looks concerned, which is surprising, since he’s on the same side as the man with the knife. More worrisome is the growing smile on their kidnapper’s face.

 

Aaron looks at the knife in his hand. He needs to move now, before he loses his advantage, but suspicion is growing in his mind. He could stab their kidnapper - give them both time to escape - except he’s beginning to realize that that’s what’s expected of him. There’s an end game here, and he needs to know what it is before he acts.

 

“Hotch,” Reid is saying, “It’s okay. You have the knife. I trust you.”

 

He doesn’t feel like that’s a good thing. Maybe it would be better if he gave the knife to Reid. Surely that would be a better move than standing alone, stupidly, letting his window of opportunity dwindle into nothing.

 

Their kidnapper isn’t moving. Why isn’t he moving?

 

_Come here_ , says a voice from outside the door. It doesn’t make sense. There’s no one out there. “Who was that?” Aaron asks, feeling shaken. The situation is rapidly spinning out of control. He has a knife, no one has moved to take it from him, and there’s a voice calling to him from outside of the room. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make any sense.

 

“I heard it, too. You’re not imagining it,” Reid says, profiling him and getting to the heart of the problem in a way that feels more reassuring than invasive. Reid tries to get closer to him, but their kidnapper intervenes.

 

“Stay back! Stay away from him!” He places himself between the two of them with an oddly protective gesture. As though he’s protecting Aaron. “Hotch, I don’t hear anything. They’re playing tricks on you.”

 

They’re words that would be more fitting coming out of the mouth of one of his team members, not his kidnapper. It puts him on edge. What’s the angle here? Why doesn’t this _make any sense_?

 

He realizes that the room is moving- or, more likely, he’s the one who’s shaking. He wants to get rid of the knife. He wants to get rid of the responsibility. It isn’t _safe_ for him to have a weapon like this. He should give Reid the knife. The room- no, he, _Aaron_ , doesn’t stop shaking.

 

“Whatever you do, don’t give him the knife,” someone says, and Aaron can’t tell who it is. He can’t afford to make the wrong decision here. He can’t afford to make any decision here.

 

His hands are shaking. The room is spinning. _Come out here_ , says the voice. It seems very real for something that must be in his head. It all seems very real.

 

–

 

Morgan picks up the call on his phone. “Hey mama, you’re on speaker. What do you have for us?”

 

“Well, I did some digging, as per usual, and turns out our kidnapper of innocents was in the same psych class as this other guy, John Gretham, in university. Which doesn’t seem like a lot, since that psych class had like four hundred people in it, _but_ , here’s where the story gets interesting! And by interesting, I mean totally horrifying.”

 

“What happened?” Kate asks.

 

“Well, my dear, both John and Arthur were kicked out of school for doing these psychological experiments on their fellow students which were deemed unethical by the board that oversees this stuff, and I totally one hundred percent understand why. What they did was give them these drugs which they _said_ were, like, salt pills, but turns out they caused disorientation because they had all these nasty chemicals in them.”

 

“Huh. So the guy’s a chemist, too, then,” Morgan says.

 

“Yup, he was taking some pretty high level chemistry courses. But more importantly, in the experiment, they’d get the students all into the same room together and make up lies about the other students, and they’d observe how they interacted with people who’d been told that they were in a room with these awful human beings without any rational or logical proof. But the whole thing didn’t end up as a criminal case because the students did technically sign waivers that consented to ingesting anything as long as it didn’t cause any lasting side effects, which it didn’t, and no one was phyiscally injured, and there’s some speculation that one of the ethics board members was a family friend of John Gretham, so the point is the whole thing got blown over as an academic offense instead of a criminal one, which is why it took so long for me to find.” The team hears Garcia take a deep breath over the phone, and start tapping her desk with what must be one of her pens.

 

“Disorientation, confusion about what’s real and what isn’t, manipulation by an outside force... that sounds suspiciously like what Hotch went through with Peter Lewis,” Rossi says.

 

“That’s _exactly_ what I was thinking, you and me are obviously brain twins. And guess what? Turns out that John Gretham has some hacking skills, which means, drumroll please, it’s possible that he hacked into our records - which aren’t that secure when it comes to case reports, to be honest - read Hotch’s file, and decided it would be a neat idea to try his old university experiment out again.”

 

JJ adds Gretham’s name to the UNSUB sheet. “Some things still don’t make sense, though. Why would he have picked Hotch specifically, especially considering he’d be a difficult target to locate and subdue? And why take the risk of going through FBI files when he could easily find someone who’d been through a similar kind of trauma? Dissociation, forced disorientation, and psychological torture - these things are not that uncommon. And how does Reid figure into this?”

 

“It’s possible that Hotch was the main target, but he needed someone else as a prop to add to whatever psychological torture he planned for Hotch. And while the results may be common, what Hotch went through was pretty unique. I doubt there are many people with similar experiences out there,” Rossi says. JJ nods, conceding the point.

 

“Garcia, can you see if Gretham has any properties where he could keep two men?” Kate asks.

 

“I’m way ahead of you, darling. He lives in an apartment and he works at a small internet cafe... wait! His parents have a big house, lots of land, with another smaller building in the backyard. I’m texting the address to all of you right now.”

 

“Thanks, mama,” Morgan says.

 

“Go get our boys, hot stuff. And all of you, stay safe!” Garcia hangs up with a click.

 

–

 

Aaron would not trust himself with a weapon right now - would, in fact, prefer it if no weapons were in the mix.

 

But there they are. All of his instincts are telling him to find a way to get the knife to Reid, but can't exactly trust those instincts.

 

Alternatively, he could threaten their kidnapper. The problem is that everything is swimming - he’s not sure whose face is whose, and the whisper telling him to _let go of the knife, Aaron_ isn’t helping matters.

 

“Give me the knife,” says Reid- or, the man who has placed himself in Reid’s position. Maybe Reid is the one on the other side of the room. That’s how it was before, right? _Let go of the knife, Aaron_. It would be easier if he just let go.

 

“Hotch,” calls the person from the other side of the room. It must be Reid. He’s moving closer. “Hotch, don’t listen to him. Don’t let go of the knife.”

 

He won’t. He won’t let go of the knife. He looks up at the two people - Reid’s gotten closer, unless it’s their kidnapper - what if Reid is the person closest to him - he can’t see very well, he can’t see at all, he’s just so _dizzy_ -

 

This can’t go on. He can’t wait for his team. He has to make a decision. He looks between the two - logically, he’s sure he knows who Reid is, but what if he’s _wrong_ \- and takes a step forward. He grips the knife with shaking fingers. Oh god, what if he’s wrong.

 

Morgan’s voice is strong and clear. It leaves no room for imagination. “FBI! Don’t move!”

 

Aaron lets go of the knife.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAA wow haha. literally more than a year ago i wrote "this is technically a work in progress, but do not fear!" WOW what a lie. i am the worst. while i personally don't really care that much about this story anymore, i 100% know that feel when an author abandons a work, so i have cranked this out. im sorry if it doesn't live up to expectations, but i'm glad to officially be done w/ this work & i hope it reads ok to those of you who may still be reading this!

The EMT gives Reid a pat on the (unhurt) shoulder and walks away, leaving the two of them sitting on the ambulance lip.

 

“Now we both know I’m a liability,” Aaron admits, clenching and unclenching his hands.

 

“I don’t think that’s true.” Reid will look right at you when he’s spouting statistics, but he’s awful at eye contact when he has to actually be emotionally reassuring. It’s oddly comforting. “You recognized the problem, and you didn’t hurt anyone. That’s a success, in my books.”

 

“But if that unsub wasn’t so invested in witnessing my mental breakdown, he could’ve killed us. I had a knife, and could just as easily killed myself or you instead of him.” That’s the part that gets him the most: the possibility of the knife sliding under Reid’s ribs; the condolence visit that would have to be paid to his mother, who would have no one else to write to or hear from ever again.

 

“It’s over now, though. And if he had been trying to kill us? You would’ve done something. Or maybe I would have. We don’t know how it would’ve turned out because that’s not what happened, Hotch. What did happen is you stayed calm in the face of some very real trauma, and got us out of there.” Reid finally, finally turns to look Aaron in the eyes, which means that Aaron can now see the purpled bruising over his right eye in full detail. Even so, it’s a good speech.

 

“Well, you’re the one who did all the work,” Aaron says, hoping that Reid will take the bait and lighten the mood.

 

He doesn’t disappoint.“I'd say it was more of a team effort,” he says, and nudges Aaron’s shoulder with his own. Aaron can still hear that voice echoing in the back of his mind, but right now, he feels content. Safe, even.

 

–

 

“You think I should be let go,” Aaron blurts out in the middle of their debrief. Damn it. He didn’t mean to be that blunt.

 

“Hotch, no,” Rossi says, “of course not.”

 

Aaron snorts lightly. “Yeah, right. You read the report.”

 

“And what I saw was a man who had to deal with intensive trauma placed in a situation where the effects of that trauma were exacerbated.” Rossi sighs. “Hotch. I don’t _blame_ you for having PTSD.”

 

“Rossi,” Aaron starts, then stops.

 

“I’m just saying you should take some more time off,” Rossi says. “Real time off. Get out of the country, spend some time with Jack.”

 

Aaron contemplates the desk in front of him. “I don’t know,” he says, truthfully. “I’m not-” He debates saying _I’m not comfortable being alone with my son_ , and shamefully, guiltily swallows it down. “I have a responsibility to stay here, and I’m just not sure I would benefit from time off,” he says, as though that’s a valid reason for refusing to recuperate.

 

Rossi just looks at him. “Trauma isn’t an isolated incident, Aaron.”

 

“I know, Rossi-”

 

“It impacts your actions and your memories. It _changes_ you, Hotch. And that doesn’t make you a weak or a bad person; it just means you need to work harder than the average person does to recognize that not everything is a threat.” Rossi quirks a smile. “Maybe spending some time away from the BAU is the best way for you to learn how to do that.”

 

Aaron nods, and looks away.

 

Rossi stays seated for a moment, before patting the desk between them and standing up. “Well, consider it,” he says, very, very gently. 

 

“I’ll think about it,” Aaron makes himself say.

 

–

 

And so life at the BAU moves on. JJ offers a shoulder to cry on, Kate offers to get him too drunk to feel, and Garcia heavily implies that she can offer him marijuana; Aaron refuses, but expresses gratitude, even for the offers that were semi-legal at best. He files his reports, signs off on cheque requests, and liaises with department heads. Reid shows JJ’s youngest his film canister rocket launcher trick. Morgan comes in with a hickey and laughs off the team’s lighthearted jabs.

 

When Lewis’ influence was at its strongest, Aaron didn’t kill his team; when Gretham and Groenig kidnapped him and Reid, he managed to avoid hurting anyone. He knows he resisted the power of suggestion and drug-induced hallucinations. He knows he is well on his way to healing, whatever that means for him.

 

He still makes Jack lock his bedroom door at night.


End file.
